


I've Got You, Brother

by nctinee



Series: Erlebnisse [20]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, But everything turns out okay in the end and that's all that matters!!, Divorce, Lee Taeyong Needs a Hug, Lee Taeyong-centric, Mark Lee & Lee Taeyong Are Siblings, Mark Lee (NCT) Needs a Hug, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Sibling Love, This got away from me in the end, but..., other nct members mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27412609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nctinee/pseuds/nctinee
Summary: He just wants to sleep and forget all of this, all of his conflicting emotions and thoughts buzzing in his head, but he wakes up a little more at the sound of soft footfalls making their way towards his room, too quick to be his father’s slow deliberate pacing and too soft to be his mom’s scratchy slippers.His heart drops into his stomach.He sits up at the sight of Mark pushing open his door, head just barely coming up to the doorknob, so small and fragile as tears run like rivers down his face while he’s clutching at Lionel for dear life."Yongie hyung?"
Relationships: Mark Lee & Lee Taeyong
Series: Erlebnisse [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1418836
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	I've Got You, Brother

**Author's Note:**

> tw// fighting, hints of verbal abuse, abandonment, divorce
> 
> This ain't a happy one (maybe for you it is. It surely isn't for me). Sorry MarkYong and readers in advance.
> 
> So there's definitely a lot of projection in this lol. As a child of divorce this was a little difficult to put into words, and since I was super young (not-so-fun fact: my parents split just before my 6th birthday, there are no pictures of either party and I'm sure you can guess why) it's hard to remember exactly what happened between my parents, but the split has definitely impacted mine and my brother's lives a lot. Divorce is a lot more common between families now then it was 10 years ago and since I want to make this series as real as possible, I knew I had to throw divorce in somewhere since I actually know what I'm talking about!
> 
> Now with that sad shit out of the way,,,,I've tried to make this as stand-alone as possible, but it was tricky. Hope you casual readers enjoy, and hello to my Erlebnisse followers sorry I died looool!!!!

There's a shatter of glass and two yelling voices following it, screams of, _"Asshole!"_ and _"Manipulated me…"_ and _"Get out!"_ echoing around the house. There's silence for about five minutes (he counts the numbers on his digital clock) until there's a slam of a door with angry sobs following after.

He shudders when the slam from the door ricochets through the house and up to his room, and the tears that were pooling in his eyes start to drip over the bridge of his nose while he waits for more loud noises to tell him the fighting isn’t over. He can feel the panic taking over his whole body if the shaky breaths he’s taking in through his mouth are anything to go by, and his mind starts thinking through all the what-if questions and scenarios that have plagued his mind since his parents have started fighting.

This is the fourth fight that’s happened this month, and the only one that’s happened this late at night. They’ve fought twice just before dinner, and once just as he was opening the door from his walk home from school. They were all unexpected and ugly fights that had him hiding in his room, hands held over his ears to block out the shouting.

Sometimes it's sudden, and his brain can’t catch up to how fast his parents go from being civil to being at each other’s throats. Sometimes he gets this gut feeling and he sees the way his father’s jaw clenches and the way his mom clutches the hand towel so hard the threads rip, and sometimes he can feel a fight building, like how an animal senses an earthquake. 

Most of the time he runs to his room to hide or walks over to the park across the street to escape the shouting, but he always manages to catch the beginnings. 

It's never about them, he's managed to figure out. Sometimes his parents will go "Taeyong this," and "Mark that," to try and one-up the other parent, but they're never the center of the fight. It's almost always about his dad being gone all the time or the dwindling money in their bank account, or sometimes they'll just shout incomprehensible words until one of them snaps and breaks something. That's how their fights usually go, and he figured that it would be the way the fight went tonight. Just a few harsh words and a broken glass or two, and that would be it.

He’s proven wrong when what sounds like a door banging against a wall from being opened too hard after a car starts, and there’s a thump from a room down the hall that makes him jump and pull his blanket up a little higher over his shoulders. 

He hopes the thump didn’t come from his little brother’s room, but knowing that the only other two people that lived in the house were outside arguing, he squashes it immediately. Mark wasn’t much of a heavy sleeper either—he was always able to wake at the subtlest shifts in the atmosphere—and the thought of his little brother being awake to hear this made him fist his blanket in a fit of nerves.

A few more minutes pass by on his clock in silence, and he starts to feel his mind drift as he glances up at the stars on his ceiling, when the front door opens again with more sobs accompanying it, this time more agonizing than angry.

He has half a mind to go downstairs and find out what’s going on, but part of him knows if he steps foot down there he’ll get yelled at for not going to sleep or possibly worse, and the other part is just tired—tired of having to go through this every day, not knowing if that day would be the day something would change between the four of them. He’s tired of having fear course through his body when his parents so much as glance at each other on a bad day, tired of witnessing the fighting and wondering in the back of his mind where Mark was so he could protect the younger. 

He just wants to sleep and forget all of this, all of his conflicting emotions and thoughts buzzing in his head, but he wakes up a little more at the sound of soft footfalls making their way towards his room, too quick to be his father’s slow deliberate pacing and too soft to be his mom’s scratchy slippers.

His heart drops into his stomach.

He sits up at the sight of Mark pushing open his door, head just barely coming up to the doorknob, so small and fragile as tears run like rivers down his face while he’s clutching at his stuffed lion cub (their father bought Mark Lionel at the zoo five years ago for his second birthday; it was probably the last birthday that their family was an actual _family,_ ) for dear life.

"Yongie hyung?" He whimpers into the room, and it's just the little shake in Mark's voice that makes him shoot out of bed and envelop his little brother into a tight hug, tucking the younger's face into his shoulder. He isn't nearly old nor strong enough to pick up Mark comfortably, but he does it nonetheless and walks them both back over to his bed, laying the younger down as gently as he's able to.

Mark burrows into his chest once they're both settled under the blankets, his small body shaking with sobs when the house falls silent once again. He can feel his shirt soaking up Mark's tears and guesses when they'll wake up in the morning there will be a wet spot on his pillow, but that isn't important right now. 

Right now, he smooths a hand over his brother’s back and whispers, “It’s okay Markie, it’s okay. Go to sleep bub, go to sleep, I’m right here, I’ll protect you.” He trails his fingers over Mark’s neck and into his hair, scratching at the younger’s scalp lightly as tears well in his own eyes. 

Right now, protecting Mark is the most important thing. If their parents were too busy fighting and screaming at each other for them to notice that their two children were curled up in bed with fear coursing through their veins, then so be it. He’d look after Mark; care for him and look after him like their parents should be doing. 

Wrapping his arms and the blanket tighter around the young boy like a shield, he traces Mark’s features with his eyes and smooths his thumb over his little brother’s brows when he scrunches them, vowing in his head to protect him from the disaster that is their parent’s relationship.

Eventually Mark’s breaths slow to a normal pace and his hands uncurl from their position fisted in the older’s t-shirt, and he allows himself to relax. Hopefully the fighting has ceased for the night and he can try and get a little bit of sleep before school starts in a few hours, but if not, he knows he won't be able to fall asleep again.

He does eventually drift off like that, ears straining for a loud noise that doesn't come, eyes slowly slipping shut as he looks at his brother and promises, _never again. I'll never let him cry over them again._

He hopes that he'll be able to keep that promise.

He wakes up late for school. 

It’s only by a few minutes, but it still makes him shoot up from bed and rush to throw on a hoodie over his pajama shirt, not bothering with changing his pants since the teachers don’t care, and grabbing his backpack from his desk chair. He doesn’t understand why he slept in late since he always set an alarm and his mom usually comes in to make sure he’s awake (oh…) and in the midst of his whirling thoughts and rushed preparation for school, he doesn’t realize that Mark is gone from the room.

The house is eerily silent as he rushes down the stairs, and he quickly takes note that his father isn’t in the kitchen scowling into his morning coffee and pretending to read the paper in an attempt to be a normal family after a fight, but he doesn’t have time to unpack that. He’s going to miss homeroom at this point if he doesn’t get his butt out the door _now._

He opts to skip breakfast and packing his own lunch for school, and skids into the entrance hall of his home to pull on his shoes. (He doesn’t notice most of his father’s work shoes are gone from the doormat, or that his two heavy winter coats are missing from the coat rack.) He double-knots the laces since his friend Johnny likes to untie his shoes as a prank, and just as he’s about to open and sprint out the door, his mother’s lilting voice calls out to him. “Taeyong, honey? Can you c’mere?” she calls from behind him, and he has half a mind to deny her and go to school, but the little waver in her voice makes him turn back to where he assumes she’s sitting in the living room.

Walking through the entrance and around the back of the couch, he only realizes now that Mark was missing from his bed when he woke up in a rush because he’s here, tucked under their mother’s chin with his legs drawn up to his chest, Lionel blocking his face from the world. He can hear the muted sniffles coming from his brother, and he looks up and meets his mother’s eyes, which are ringed with red and shining in the morning light. 

It is then, with the eerie silence of the house and the noticeable absence of the tension between his parents the morning after they fight, that he notices that his father is gone. Even if he should be in school right now, his father doesn’t leave until 9 a.m which means he’d still sit at the table with him and eat breakfast with him, so why isn’t he here now? Why isn’t he sitting at the table like he usually does, scoffing at the cover story of the newspaper and glaring at his coffee?

She holds a slender hand out to him—the one that isn't holding Mark by the waist—and he drops his backpack from his shoulder to walk forward into her embrace, one arm circling around her neck and the other going around Mark's back to keep the three of them locked in a sort-of group hug. Now that he’s closer to his family members, he can hear Mark’s heavier huffs of breath as he calms down from what he assumes was a crying fit, and he can feel his mother’s racing heartbeat pressed against his stomach as they fit together like a puzzle. (He feels like there’s a piece missing, like a gaping hole where a certain person should be.)

“I’m late for school,” he mumbles to the room, eyeing the ticking clock on the wall across from him. He’s definitely been counted absent by now.

“You’re not going today, I called you in sick." She rubs her hand up and down his back, and he feels small fingers curl around the arm that's wrapped around Mark’s waist.

He moves his head back a little to stare his mom in the eyes to ask, "What? Why? Mom, I had a test today in Science that was super important, I told you this,"

"I know hon and I'm sorry, but we have to talk about something important and I didn't want to wait until after you both got home from school,” her voice is shaky like she's fighting the emotions that are swirling around in her head, and her eyes are glossy as she watches Mark nuzzle his face into Lionel’s side with a sad smile.

“I know you both heard us last night,”

Mark makes a noise from the back of his throat while he looks back at the clock. _8:17_ it reads, but all he can think about is the guilt and anger crashing down on him. He can’t name _why_ he feels these things, he can’t really think about anything right now.

“And I know you might be wondering where your father is,”

There’s a tiny sob, and he sees his mother move her head to press a kiss against Mark’s temple out of the corner of his eye.

 _Where_ is he? Why isn’t he at the table? Why, when he moves his head to look out of their living room window, is his father’s car not in the driveway? He has a stack of books he plans to read under the end table by the rocking chair, why aren’t they there? Why? _Why?_

“Momma?” He asks, the name he used to call her when he was little slipping out. His vision gets distorted from the tears in his eyes.

He looks back down at her, and looks this time, _really_ looks at her because he doesn’t want the conclusion he’s come to in his mind to come true. He looks for an answer in her bloodshot eyes with bags hanging under them and her bitten raw red lips, the absence of her usual Tuesday morning makeup and her unruly black hair. He looks for comfort, for warmth, but all he sees is an apology.

He realizes somewhere in the whirlwind of his mind that he knew that this would happen, that someway or another they wouldn’t bounce back from one of their fights, if he can even call it that. He knew that this splinter was inevitable, that things would break apart and he would be left scrambling for the pieces to put his parents’ love back together. He knows that no matter how many splinters and cuts he gets trying to patch their framework of a family together that it would still fall apart, that he would get hurt and not know what to do, what to feel. He _knows_ and yet he still tries to find ways to get them back together, for them to be Mom and Dad and Taeyong and Mark again. 

She cups his cheek with one hand, tugs Mark closer to her by the shoulder with the other. It’s as if she draws them closer so they don’t feel the looming absence of his father—of the things he left behind. “I’m so sorry baby.” She whispers, and that is when he breaks.

He wakes up again that night (he says “wake up”, but he wasn’t really asleep. Questions kept gnawing at his brain and he just couldn’t turn them off, so he resigned himself to look at the ceiling all night until it was time to get ready for school) to a door opening. It isn’t a door on the second floor, there is no tell-tale scratch of his mom’s slippers and no pitter-patter of Mark’s little feet, so his mind jumps to the closest thing, and thinks his house is being broken into.

 _But that’s ridiculous,_ he thinks, _nothing was broken, and burglars wouldn’t be dumb enough to go through the front door, right?_ So then what…

Oh.

He shoves the duvet off of him and speed walks to the door, opening it as quietly as possible and slipping through the crack. He avoids all the creaky floorboards in the hallway and then makes his way down the stairs, only to stop on the fourth to last step to see a man hunched over one of the end tables, ruffling in one of the drawers.

“Dad?” he asks. His knuckles turn white as he grips the railing.

The man stands, turns, and says after a beat, “Taeyong,” but it’s monotone, emotionless. He feels his stomach churn as he looks at the man who was supposed to protect him, tell him funny stories, teach him how to play sports or how to fix a broken toy. Now all he sees is something unfamiliar, something foreign. That thought leaves a bad taste on his tongue.

“Go back to sleep, you have school in a few hours,” his father says, and Taeyong doesn’t know why he says it, or why he takes those final steps off of the staircase, but he finds himself a few steps away from him and mouth opening to ask,

“Why?”

“Why what?” is all he gets in response. His blood boils.

“Why _what?_ Dad you—You _left._ You and Mom fought last night and then I woke up and you were _gone_ . _Why?_ Why were you gone?”

He can’t see the expression his father makes. It’s too dark and his eyes haven’t fully adjusted, but he does see one of his father’s hands clench and unclench.

“I don’t know, Yong. I don’t have all the answers. I wish I could tell you why all of this is happening, between me and your mother, but I can’t. I wish I could make it all go away, and that I didn’t fight with her and that I don’t make you and your brother sad, but I can’t. I just know that I can’t be here right now without making things worse, and I know it’s hard for you to understand but—but I need you to know that this isn’t your fault, yours or Mark’s. I need you to know that you both are still my kids and I love you, even if it doesn’t seem like that right now,” He moves away from the table and puts something in his jacket pocket, then over to him and gets down on his knees so they’re eye-to-eye.

“I love you,” he says again, then he wraps his arms around the 11 year old’s sides and hugs him tight.

He ends up falling asleep on his father’s shoulder, they stay like that for so long, and in the morning he finds himself tucked back into bed. He feels like he should be embarrassed—he’s 11, he doesn’t need to be carried to bed anymore—but all he feels is confusion. His father loves him, but he’s still gone when he goes downstairs to eat breakfast. His father wants to fix things, but hasn’t talked much to his mom since their last fight. His father told him it wasn’t his fault, but he feels guilty for seeing him last night without his mom knowing.

Those thoughts don’t go away when he leaves for school. They don’t go away when Johnny sees him that morning and asks why he was sick. They don’t go away when he retakes his Science test, or when he finishes the last class of the day and walks home on his own.

They don’t go away for a long time. Mark too, develops some of these thoughts when he gets older and starts to understand. Not all of it—but enough that he knows he’s different from the other kids at school. Their therapist tells them that it’s okay to be confused, to be angry. Kids handle divorce (Taeyong’s skin prickles when he first hears the term a few months after the detrimental fight, still does years later) differently, and he and Mark handle it very differently. 

Mark draws back a little when he gets into his pre-teens, then comes more out of his shell when he meets Yukhei and Donghyuck and all their friends. Taeyong gets angry for no reason most of the time and Johnny balances him out, then they’re thrown off balance again when they meet the new kid Yuta in 7th grade who has his own batch of problems and anger issues. In some weird way, Johnny and Yuta fill the hole his father leaves gaping when he moves across the country after the divorce is finalized and they lose contact.

Sometimes he and Mark don’t talk, mostly because they don’t know what to say. Mark sits at the same place their father sat and traces the wood patterns in the table, sometimes Taeyong joins him. Their mom makes them tea, tugs at their ears in a fond way and kisses their cheeks. She doesn’t stop loving them, doesn’t stop saying their father loves them even if they all don’t believe that anymore. They fill the hole he left with more friends than they can count on two hands, and life gets better.

And through it all, even if they have their rough patches, Taeyong and Mark get through it together. They care for each other and love each other like brothers do. They learn and grow and learn to trust each other, learn to depend on each other. Taeyong doesn’t keep his promise, but it was a naïve one to keep anyway. 

Mark tells him the night they’re setting up his dorm room in Boston that Taeyong was like a father figure to him growing up, and they both cry then, but they aren’t sad tears. They haven’t been for a long time, and Taeyong makes a new promise as he tells Mark goodnight and that he loves him, then drives away from his little brother so he can start his life on his own.

_I will always be there for you, no matter what you need. I love you, I love you, I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> AH SORRY FOR DYING I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH MY NEW JOB AND SCHOOL IS REALLY STRESSFUL (yo people don't lie Junior year SUCKS) AND *takes a deep breath* there's also a lot of stress with my grandpa's health so my family and I are a lil panicky atm. I've also been writing like,,,,,6 other things (if you pay attention on my twt, it's markno. it's all markno.) and I CANNOT decide what to work on while also being on one of the BIGGEST writing blocks I've ever experienced so that's,,,,fun. 
> 
> ANYWAY PART 2 IS HAPPENING AND IT'S GONNA BE A 90S HIP-HOP THEME AND YUTA, JENO, AND HENDERY ARE ALL GONNA B IN THE TITLE TRACKS AND UGHHHH I'M WINNING. I'M WINNING. WE BETTER GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER NCTZENS SO WE CAN MAKE THE NEOS HAPPY!!! DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE ANTIS AND THE HATERS, JUST REPORT AND BLOCK AND GIVE OUR BOYS ALL THE LOVE!! (Update, it's 4 a.m and 90s Love SOTY, All About You is ABSOLUTELY my favorite track, I.O.U is dope I will repeat this song forever, and I need Jeno to hit me with a brick pls sir I'm begging you I CANNOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE)
> 
> So uh thanks for reading and sticking around sorry again I feel sooooo bad but I'll try not to let it happen again :)) and I would also like to thank an and realitysuh for being sweethearts you guys have helped me so much 🥺🥺 liu 🥺🥺


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